


why is your violence still hurting me?

by Anonymous



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Dead Billy Hargrove, Grave Visit, Grieving Max Mayfield, No Incest, Steve is a dork, canonical death, squint super super hard and you'll see a small hint at harringrove
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 13:49:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20797631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Anyone would know. Anyone who passes by a flowerless grave, dry and forgotten, would know Billy was far frombeloved.





	why is your violence still hurting me?

** _________ **

in memory of

**William Hargrove**

Tue, April 4, 1967 — Thu, July 4, 1985

_beloved son, brother, and friend_

**_________**

Beloved son, brother, and friend. Beloved son, brother, and friend. Beloved son, brother, and friend.

The words reverberated around Max’s head, dull and meaningless. Because it was a fucking joke. _Billy_ was not _loved._ Not as a son, not as a brother, and certainly not as a friend. An ache grew in her chest. She looked around.

Anyone would know. Anyone who passes by a flowerless grave, dry and forgotten, would know he was far from _beloved._

Her hand shook when she threw the rose onto the soil. A rumble of thunder came a moment later and Max laughed. She looked up at the sky, _even from up there, Billy?_ she wanted to say, but she held back. Waited for the first drops of rain to fall down and allow her to let free a single tear. A sliver of pain. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

She silently dropped to her knees, legs folded beneath her. “I hate you,” she rasped. “I hate you so much.”

She didn’t. She really really didn’t and she wished she did. She wished he’d died a cowardly death that wouldn’t make her feel this hole in her chest every time she looked at El. She wished he hadn’t used his last breaths to tell her he was sorry. She wished people cared. She wished he’d seen his mother before he died. She wished he didn’t die. She wished, she _wished_.

The dining table had been calmer since he passed. Susan drove her to school now. Steve drove her to the arcade. Billy’s been replaced. Forgotten. The world is deader to Max. Some people kept telling her he’s _in a better place._ Billy always believed he’d have a throne in hell or some shit. Others told her she was better off without him. She wasn’t.

He was violent. Brimmed with hatred. But his absence was just as hurtful. Maybe more. So much more.

A cry raked through her body, clotted in her throat until she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She let it out, bent down until her forehead was touching the ground Billy lay under, and she cried. Not even the thunder could drown out the pain honing her sobs.

She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there, curled into a ball and desperately wishing things weren’t what they were. And every time she thought she’d drained all the water out of her system, she found herself crying again, weaker and quieter every time. Until she was convulsing soundlessly, no tears and no words and no _hatred._

She felt Lucas’ hand rest on her shoulder, not to pull her away but to comfort her as she imploded on herself. Then El was there. Then Dustin, then Will and Jonathan, then Mike and Nancy, and finally, Steve and Robin.

Max regained composure, took a deep breath and wiped her hands beneath her eyes. She gave a watery laugh when Steve patted the headstone like it were someone’s shoulder. “He was a dick, but I— _we_—” he gestured for the whole gang. “—we miss him too.”

“Speak for yourself, I didn’t know the dude,” Robin tried brightening the mood.

Max laughed again when Steve mumbled, “You’d hate him. He was a total garbage bag,” into Robin’s ear. It sounded fond more than genuine. It made Max laugh out a sob. Robin elbowed him.

Then Steve bent down and placed a Marlboro packet on the grave. He lifted his shoulders with a _“What?”_ when everyone’s eyes fixed on him in sheer exasperation. “He can’t ruin his lungs now that he’s _dead._”

“Whose idea was it to bring him along?” Robin asked.

Jonathan cleared his throat. “Guilty as charged,” he raised a hand. He looked genuinely guilty.

Max smiled, lifted a hand for El to pull her to her feet, then she dusted herself off, stopping dead in her tracks when her hand brushed her back pocket. She looked up at the rest, and they got the message.

Once they were out of sight, she pulled out a photo. She found it under Billy’s mattress when she’d been cleaning out his room. It was a photo of his mother.

She was pretty. Long blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes that looked a lot like Billy’s. She reminded Max of him. So much that Max had difficulty letting go of the photograph. She knelt down, lifted the red rose to use it as a makeshift paperweight for the photo.

When she stood up and walked away, and didn’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from "she and her darkness" by diary of dreams.


End file.
